Sega's Upcoming Crazy Taxi Revival Will Apparently Be A "Triple-A" Game

If only companies should stop using the Triple A or AAAA nonsense

This is what I want. SEGA has a lot of good franchises that would make fun new games without feeling like mobile games.

@Savage_Joe I refuse to play any games until we are at the 10xA level at the very least.

It's allegedly supposed to be live service as well. Considering the bubble is bursting for that and how I don't believe it's what people want out of this series returning, probably not a good move

I have my concerns as I loved the OG.

That's a bad sign.

Hope this turns out well.

I enjoyed Crazy Taxi on the GameCube.

@PikaPhantom Well how else would you make a big revival of an otherwise small arcade game? The original isn't exactly the biggest game in the world and the same could go for it's sequels. They're always meant to be replayed over and over.

What would an arcade objective based car game constitute jumping to a Triple A production? Not saying that you can't but need to catch an audience before you go all in on such a kinda niche IP.

That's not a good thing. The only thing "Triple A" really means to me is bloated game packed with unnecessary padding and fluff.

Excellent, crazy taxi 1 & 2 are still regulars for me so hope this can be as good as possible (music will be crucial though)

AAA.. Super Game.. Sega is going way too hard to convince people they can make a professional video game

just release the original Crazy Taxi.
I know Sega can get the music rights, as it's on mobile.

@Samalik make it like Cruis'n Blast. Like the arcade game but embiggened. And, in Cruis'n s case, an actual good game in the series.

What does triple A mean? Was the original Crazy Taxi considered a triple A game? I'll be honest, I don't recollect that term being thrown around back then. Especially for arcade games. Mind you, it's the kind of horse manure that I wouldn't have paid much attention to. All AAA usually means is a massive budget and probably some disgusting business practices to hit their sales target.

I just can't see this being the right direction for the series. Kind of depressing that my first thought was "AAA? Can't they make a fun game instead?"

@GrailUK The monkey gets it

@GrailUK
Triple A is literally a screaming AAA...!!! 😆

So how many modes? To me it's one of those things where people have too high of expectations with arcade style games these days. Tank Tank Tank for example for Wii U.

I enjoy arcade games (well from a certain era ones at least) but at the same their content and repetition can be a limit. PGR good, Tank Tank Tank fair but too much reskins but still fun.

If Crazy Taxi fits it's wackiness and can offer enough things to do I'm fine with it. If not then well it will be another generic open world with nothing that great of missions. Even most car based open worlds bore me so I go circuits/rally/many city layouts and different modes types, fair arcade or sim physics/handling model.

Burnout Paradise was fair but kind of lacking and repetitive of events types and the layout of the city was awkward. Even the duels to get the cars were confusing at first and once awarded only somewhat offered much. Even playing the linear Burnouts circuits are fine in older games to a point.

Forza Horizon and others don't interest me either. But many sims have been hit and miss or more miss of just boring game design. GT/Forza aren't iRacing or other assets individually sold greedy but still lack in areas of appeal, eh progression, eh leveling systems too far and too gated, nothing exciting of a cool feature/gimmick to make it stand out. Basic modes yet I played WRC 3 on 360 and raced a helicopter, have drift, single stage/rally,

GTI Club on PSP there was soccer, a hot tomato mode, a bomb mode, like where is the fun arcadey silliness in games these days it's just Outrun/Virtua Racing clones, or top down micro machines maybe.

WHERE IS THE CREATIVITY INDIES! Wreckest is probably the obvious arcade racing game (not arcade but still it's not a sim game) but it embraces while not it's obstacle course aspects of Flatout does still have sofas, buses, tractors, lawnmowers to drive. You can get lawnmowing racing on PC sure from the 2000s but a modern game with some not usual things to drive. Yes please. Give me more interesting modes or things to drive please.

Crazy Taxi has so much possibilities of silliness and events/modes to offer multiplayer or singleplayer in a world, city, middle of nowhere, whatever creativity and cartoony logic they want to go with.

I have not played the games I just know from the Dreamcast/GameCube one and the music, part of what the world/gameplay is but not enough, I haven't seen enough of the series on PSP or the sequels or whatever the case. So the series has probably done a lot for all I know but I doubt it also as well.

Seriously this is why the industry sucks. I can look so many places and most are so narrow and so boring they can't even look past a few steps of other games or come up with more ideas themselves to experiment. Just the same boring things over and over. Get creative developers.

Where are the unique modes? Where is touge/hillclimbs we haven't had in years since Grid 2008 or Tokyo Extreme Racer or Forza Motorsport 4 or others maybe. Touge probably hasn't been in a western racing game in years, maybe in Japan in modern games I don't know enough about, only older ones of the 2000s.

Then again many racing games have sucked in good ideas. So retro I go or what annual WRC/MotoGP did in the past (7th gen, 8th+ gen have either been eh nostalgic Indies or AAA borefests of just safe games that aren't exciting and level gating and other things like i again before) were good.

If we get some silly stunt or moveset things to do, location requests, driving experience requests as a bonus not goals to perfect, varied vehicles, varied city design, I doubt a city that evolves though no one does dynamic things anymore it's all heavily scripted. It could be a really good Crazy Taxi, arcade driving open world game. But I am picky on my open worlds and most devs don't fill it with 'that' much either so eh like I have much trust in it returning in an exciting way.

Maybe they give characters more to them then just being passangers?

Just more interesting ways to make a Crazy Taxi game modern while still fitting what it does best.

Cautiously optimistic about this

I feel like "triple-A games" have a more negative connotation than they used to--probably because of all the recent industry layoffs. I don't think they're saying they're investing $100 million into a live service game or anything; just that they're prioritizing it as much as their other titles by giving it the budget and resources they feel it deserves. Which I think is a good thing because it means they're not treating this or their other titles like cheap afterthoughts like the Panzer Dragoon remake was.

I'd like to see PlayStation in particular undertake this same initiative with their legacy franchises. Give us a new, "triple-A" Ape Escape, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, etc. Same budget as something like Ratchet & Clank. Would be awesome to see.

So if they're going all out then this will presumably be a full open world/area. Maybe something like Crazy taxi mixed with Burnout Paradise. Or something more similar to Rare Games from the 90's where you have a set amount of goals in an area, and try to complete them all. I shouldn't get my hopes up though.

@Ironcore You joke but that's exactly where we will be in a few years.

@Not_Soos I'm not saying all those game shouldn't get newer sequels, they're all great, but I've been really wanting one of the big companies to take a risk and make a new Mascot 3D Platformer. Something Like Vexx or A Hat in Time but on an even bigger scale like Odyssey

Wow. There is a god.

Crazy taxi is not a triple A game. No offense. But crazy taxi is meant to play in short bursts? I like Crazy Taxi, but calling it Triple A is just weird.

Not everything needs to be AAA. The original Crazy Taxi is a good example of that. It was a mid-budget arcade game that was fun. I think that's more important than however many A's a company puts in front of their games.

@JPF997 On top of it Sega also release major PC exclusive games like Total War and Warhammer 40K RTS.

@JPF997 that's, eh...that's the games you went with to support your hot take, huh? Well, alright! Good for you!

New proper Crazy Taxi. I'm ready for that.

AAA nowadays usually means full-price + as much microtransactions as we can cram in.
NO THANK YOU!

@Danrenfroe2016 they will have to expand on the formula a lot more if they want it to be played in anything more than fairly short bursts, it's probably why they had crazy box in the first one, but it needs that and a lot more I would say.

So not as "good" as the flop AAAA that just come out?

So what would a triple a Crazy Taxi look like? Will we be able to create our own taxi vehicle, pick up Uber and Lyft passengers, fight rude passengers, carpool passengers, unlock new vehicles, be open world like Cyberpunk 2077, follow an in-deph story, etc? If it doesn't had any of that and be over 30 hours of play time then I don't count it as a triple A game.

We'll see. Aside from the persona, and like a dragon games, is there even anything they make that people would consider AAA? Sonic superstars was an average to good game at best. And that was better than most of the sonic releases in recent history.

Better have a story mode to make it AAA. If it's just the same old arcade style gameplay, don't see how you can make that AAA other than graphics

I enjoyed playing Crazy Taxi way back, but only ever at friends' houses. I'm very curious to see what it'll look like in the modern gaming space. Just please don't say the words "live service"!

Down for this on switch 2.

People chill! All it means is that they will charge you 60,- regardless of actual scope of the game, that is all! don’t fear it being „fluffed up“ as long as you are willing to shell out 60 bucks for an arcade game!

Hmm. Ever since I got my hands on Saint's Row IV I kind of look down on cars... at least in gaming. I'mma just run at super speed to get where I wanna go, while jumping, gliding, bombing and tanking everything in my way like the stuff of Sonic's wet dreams. Crazy taxi? whazzat?

Trying to make Crazy Taxi AAA kinda misses the point of Crazy Taxi.

all AAA means is that itll cost 40 to 70 dollars. it means nothing else concretely, and whatever you are thinking it means might not be what SEGA is thinking it means. 👍

That reminds me; Nintendo and Square-Enid are like the only Japanese devs I can easily name all the teams for, and Square's about to completely reorganize again. Does anyone know a good resource to keep track of the different teams each publisher owns? You know aside from the "we really like this contract studio in particular" type situations like how Namco' remakes and Square's Team Asano projects happen.

Not quadruple-A?
Not worth my time. I don’t get out of bed for a game made by people on fewer than 7 continents.

I struggle to think of a way to make a AAA Crazy Taxi game outside of turning it into GTA, which (if that happens) then begs the question: Why not just buy GTA (especially with VI coming out next year)?

I will pay a stupid amount of money for a modern Crazy Taxi. Heck, I'd even just buy a remake, nevermind a proper sequel.

Having said that, I don't know how a Crazy Taxi game can be AAA.

@heisnbrg here here. I play mostly on my Switch and several other portables and PS5. Its funny when the hardcore gamer types call Nintendo games "baby games." I can't even tell you how many games I have played on PS5 where I just hold the right stick up until someone stops talking and then get a few minutes of gameplay before a cutscene or more walking and talking. It's so tiring.

@GrailUK @Savage_Joe

The terms of old as time itself! Or well ... as old as film.

To be triple "A", you need to be an "A" list studio and the project needs an "A" list director and "A" list lead (1). That sorta translates to games! Honestly, until recently the media used it pretty accurately. A triple A game was from a established studio with a lead designer or producer who had already made a hit game, as well as a few creative directors that had done the same.

To be "AAAA" you need all 3, plus an additional "A" list bulls*&t artist on the marketing team!

Seems legit to me.

1 - This is where "B" movie comes from as well; if you had no A listers but a B list star and B list studio. This would actually work BETTER in gaming, as we could call Child of Light and Dave the Diver, both games from new teams but backed by huge studios, "B list games" instead of how we (mis)call them "independent" now. Oh well.

So bloated and constantly trying to twist your arm into giving them more money, got it.

The OG Crazy taxi game was amazing, loved the arcade gameplay style.

Triple AAA Crazy Taxi!? Time to put the crowbar away. Finally we get some Roadside Assistance for a driving game.

@heisnbrg forgot about that one. Ty

@HeadPirate Thank you for that reply! Makes sense

They need to get the music right but I think in the modern day Crazy Taxi can't be a high end game unless you give more complex targets, which could ruin the game and far more maps to drive around.

Imagine the shock when this comment section discovers that Nintendo games are triple a

@dribLS Have fun with useless marketing terms. "AAA" is more like triple B Bull 💩.

Do the people over at Saporo studio know, there is already a (spiritual) knock-off of Crazy Taxi available for the "modern" platforms? With Taxi Chaos not being completely useless, there may not be such a pressing need for a propper Crazy Taxi game...no matter how many As can the marketing dept. promise to the users.

Still play crazy taxi regularly on Dreamcast I love the game but I fear this will be full of micro transactions or even worse a live service game

SEGA needs to stop trying so hard. Calling it triple-a doesn't mean a damn thing to me. I don't see it as an indicator of quality.

SEGA need a little less conversation and a bit more action. They keep talking up their games, and then they fall flat.

This feels like desperate times if I'm being completely honest. They're trying to revive old IP and if it doesn't work then who knows?

Nevermind the fact they should have done this... hrmmm... twenty years ago?!

Perhaps they should have stuck with hardware. I'm 99% sure we'd all be enjoying much better Sonic, and wider IP, games from them if they had a console depending on it.

On a serious note... surely new management at SEGA is needed?

i happened to play GC crazy taxi last week.. (finally nintendont my WiiU..) remains a great Arcade titel, although less impressive than it used to be .. (saw the arcade machine once in real life, on Menorca i think, a there it is https://www.flickr.com/photos/romanista/1335685575/in/photolist-332JMD-332Lmz-332LMR-332MuM-332MKK-332NgT-337erA-337eFh-337eYm-337ftd-337gMW-337iMu-337j1N-337jQo-337kiy-32BR3s-332FM2-332G1p-32x7Wa-32xcGz-32xeR8-32xhag-32xiFB-32BHHu-32BJRY-32BKsy-32BLBm-32x5YV-32BDXJ-32BEBy-32BFRm-32BGvu-32BHaC-32BJhd-32BMkG-332D8T-332DVv-332E9z-332Epe-332EGc-332Feg-332Fyg-337cQW-332wQz-332xPZ-332zVa-332Bn2-3374CC-33756h-33789j)

But arcade is almost the opposite of AAA i guess... it feels more like a fun B-movie.. one marketing department who equaled AAA to 'quality' not knowing what the term implies...

Arcade racing games are just not that mainstream anymore. There's been a string of AAA flops (or at least, underperforming) releases, starting with Split/Second, Motorstorm Apocalypse, then DriveClub and Onrush, that made publishers wary of investing in the genre.

As for Sega, OutRun 2 (OG Xbox) is still a very good racer that deserves a remaster. Not hating on Crazy Taxi, but I think OutRun has more mainstream appeal.

I much preferred Square Enix's recent output where they released lots of mid-tier games. I don't know if it was a good business strategy but as a consumer I loved it, and i didn't mind paying full price for the games that I matched with.

I replayed crazy taxi recently on one of my old systems and what made it special to me was the speed, zaniness, and at the time the soundtrack of licensed songs. I think creating a fast and loose experience with style would be more important than going full AAA on a game like this.

Its hard to believe considering Sonic their flagship mascot hasn't been triple A since probably Sonic Unleashed. I think Sega set expectations too high for the smaller budgets and time constraints they put on their games.

Yakuza (Like a Dragon) seems to be the exception to this since while I don't play them they seem to put out good quality games.

This is the mistake all these companies make when bringing back old arcade games. Namco killed Ridge Racer by trying to make it AAA. Sega made a similar mistake with Sega Rally Revo. These sorts of games need to be short and focused, the design needs to prioritise immediacy and replayability over waffle and padding.

Certainly it's appreciated if the graphics are amazing, but don't spend millions making some massive photo-realistic world when it's unlikely to make that money back.

Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but I suspect this will be another example of a game being stretched longer than necessary and end up being repetitive and tedious because of it.

@heisnbrg Boi, you think I haven't tried that already?

Look Sega the game looks great the gameplay we all know and love so let’s not be stupid and price it outside of what it is.
£29.99 and it’s a seller £54.99 it is not

Learn from the poor sales of sonic at £54.99

Everyone is being cynical and I think that’s more a result of social media than anything the industry has actually done. It’s getting dull and very predictable.

I don't associate Sega anything as being AAA (with the possible exception of the Yakuza series, which I have yet to play). Their unsubstantiated blowhardedness is even more obnoxious than usual.

With that said, I will reserve judgement, but I'd rather get a port of The Simpsons Road Rage instead, but I'll nevertheless keep an open mind about a new Crazy Taxi (though I'd be content with a port of the original(s) as well).

I guess that means there will probably be some kind of a story involved with fluff and this and that. I just hope there’s some kind of classic arcade mode we can jump right into versus having to sit through bland and shallow cutscenes and story beats.
In any case this is exciting and I’m glad Sega is finally reviving some things!

Nintendo games, like Zelda, 3D Mario etc, are AAA.
So why aren't SEGA allowed to make some?
The arcade machines was definitely AAA quality, for it's era. It wasn't lowbudget productions.

@heisnbrg All the Nintendo mainline games are triple A, it cost a lot to make em and when they are release they offered hours of play time. Games like Donkey Kong, Ice Climbers, The Adventures of Link, ARMS, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Link's Cross Bow Training, and Wii Fit are not triple a titles but games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Metroid Dread, F-Zero GX, Fire Emblem Engage, Pikmin, Splatoon, Donkey Kong Country, Xenoblade Chronicles, Paper Mario, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, all these are triple A titles cause they cost a lot to make and had offered tons of hours of play time that are worth their full price.

Well then Sega, bring it. On a side note, AAA... so what are examples of AA and A games?

@Savage_Joe Yeah the moment I heard that I started to become a little skeptical. Not all triple-A games are bad, but lately, there have been a lot of disappointments made worse in contrast with highly successful indie games. I would love to see what a small passionate team could do with these old franchises. It worked for Mania!

I don't do AAA anymore. I play only AAAA games now.

It is tripple AAA, so they can grab 70$ for it.

What in the hell can be so complex. Crazy Taxi is gameplay wise on the same complexity level as Donkey Kong.